


Lifetimes Taken, Rebuilt, Reclaimed

by Vertumn



Series: Etheria Rebuilt, Reclaimed [2]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, POV Second Person, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 11:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16892049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vertumn/pseuds/Vertumn
Summary: You will outlive your daughter.You will outlive this war with the Evil Horde. You will live to see a thousand years pass, see the kingdoms of Etheria rise and fall, see innumerable She-Ras come and go.





	Lifetimes Taken, Rebuilt, Reclaimed

You will outlive your daughter.

You will outlive this war with the Evil Horde. You will live to see a thousand years pass, see the kingdoms of Etheria rise and fall, see innumerable She-Ras come and go.

These facts have caveats, of course: immortality does not mean invincibility, nor even eternal youth. No one knows, has calculated, Hordak’s expected lifespan. Many things can and will happen in the span of a millennium. When kingdoms change, so do their rulers. Even the most magnificent legends die.

(Micah died, did he not?)

You were born before Hordak’s conquest of Etheria, but long after the collapse of the First Ones. By your people’s standards, you have many, many years and life experiences ahead of you. Adora is the first She-Ra you have met; as long as the line does not again break, you will meet many more. Your marriage to Micah was your first one, and Glimmer is your first child.

(Your last marriage. Your only child.)

You thought you were prepared. Humans turn grey, gain mass, lose strength—you would remain more or less unchanged. Fifty, sixty, maybe seventy years. Rarely do humans reach a century, never mind a millennium. With your children, you could expect a century, maybe even two centuries. You had all the time in the world to prepare, many lifetimes to live before you had to say farewell.

 

> _“Angella, you are certain of this?”_
> 
> _“You would wed a mortal?”_
> 
> _“Bear mortal, ground-bound children?”_
> 
> _“Watch them age and outpace you?”_
> 
> _“Lay them to rest when you outlast them?”_
> 
> _“Yes.”_

 

Even immortals fall into the fallacy of youth.

You knew from the onset of this war that you would outlive it, just as your parents outlived the turmoil that marked the end of the First Ones’ civilization. You thought Micah would outlive the war, for your hearts beat with that invincible vitality that would outmatch all injustices. You were wrong.

You knew from the moment you decided to commit to Micah that your children had less time than yourself, that they would mature more quickly than you and less quickly than your husband. You held Glimmer in your arms in the first minutes of her life, fingers splayed around the tiny furls that might one day become flightless wings, and then, then—then she was one, two, three, four, five, seven, nine, twelve, fifteen, eighteen and determined to go to war! You were wrong.

Despite your preparations, the years have slipped through your fingers faster than your heart beats in your chest. All your resolve paled in the face of the truth: you cannot truly prepare for the passage of time.

◊          ◊          ◊

Micah died bravely, honorably, for the good of Etheria—but what did she care for honor and bravery and revolution? What did she care for the war, for the continued independence of Etheria’s kingdoms, for the struggle against the Evil Horde? What did she care for the cohesion of the Princess Alliance?

Micah—father, husband, brother—was gone.

You stagnated.

Castaspella wrote you letters even in the face of your silence. Glimmer was not yet knee-high when Castaspella last visited Bright Moon. Still you could not (cannot) face her, knowing that you sent her brother to his death, knowing that her death will come before Glimmer’s, knowing that her kingdom will go to Glimmer, knowing that you have already wasted much of what little time Castaspella has left.

The Princess Alliance broke apart due to the immense pressure the war put on the kingdoms and the princesses, but you, the de facto leader, could have tried harder to keep the alliance and your own armies together. Maybe you would have succeeded, maybe the war would have come to a conclusion by now, maybe—maybe—maybe.

You might have, if you had not been reeling, scrambled, broken by Micah’s death. You could not be the leader Bright Moon and the Princess Alliance needed. Nor did you care, not when you had a tiny, fragile child asking for her father and a cold emptiness in your bed, your heart, your life long before you had expected.

Against such forces as time and death, you could only stagnate; you kept yourself and your daughter sequestered in the safety of Bright Moon’s castle, you allowed the Princess Alliance to disperse, and you—you, the immortal!—wished ardently that time would _slow down_ as you watched your tiny daughter grow into a fierce young woman eager to challenge the entire world. You would have continued to stagnate to this day had your daughter not been as adamant as you and Micah combined.

Why did you ever allow yourself to love mortals?

Glimmer, whose wings do not even stretch across the span of your hands, fervently believes that it is her duty to fight against the Horde. You named her a commander (of a battalion, not that Glimmer paid attention enough to realize it) and found for her a post on the least dangerous front; your daughter, of course, completely eschewed your plans.

Your daughter brought back the She-Ra. Your daughter, the archer Bow, and the She-Ra Adora rebuilt the Princess Alliance in less than a year. Your daughter became a prisoner of war. Your daughter lost a loved one again. Your daughter hid from you so that you would not hinder or stifle her with your misplaced fear.

(Is your fear misplaced? Micah died, did he not?)

How could you possibly stop this fresh wave of progress? How could you possibly hold your daughter back when the entire planet relies on her?

You might outlive your daughter and the mortals, but they vastly out _pace_ you. Your supreme patience, your adamantine endurance, and your stalwart wisdom mean very little when the blood of mortals flows faster than the ichor in your own veins.

You might be the leader of the Rebellion, but your daughter is its pulse and her heart beats faster than yours.

(Perhaps this is why the alliance consists of princesses, not monarchs.)

As much as you want to keep your daughter close to you—eighteen is too soon, too young, barely anything in the long run, still a tiny, flightless, naïve fledgling—you can no longer avoid acknowledging this: your daughter lives by a different scale, and so does the world.

You might be able to live, grieve as if you have all the time in the world, because you do (and you do not), but your daughter cannot and will not do the same.

What does this mean?

This means that you must allow your daughter to walk the world. Perhaps, in the decades and centuries to come, Glimmer will one day fly the skies; perhaps, but you need to set aside this hope and this standard.

This means that the battle at Bright Moon is only the latest instance of surrendering to the tempo that governs your daughter’s life.

This means that you must allow Micah his rest. Your life still needs to be lived.

What you did not understand as a young woman, marrying Micah and imagining the long years you would have with him, you understand now—

Time does not wait for immortals.

**Author's Note:**

> Some more of whatever this is... analysis, think piece, dunno. Vaguer than "Legacies...," mostly because I didn't want to take too many liberties with Angella's backstory and the timeline. Also, maybe less cohesive and coherent than the previous one.
> 
> (Incidentally... if Adora as She-Ra is 8 feet tall... then... is Glimmer, like, 6 feet? I was looking for pictures of Glimmer's wings because I couldn't quite remember their size and came across a screenshot of Adora-Bow-Glimmer side by side and... well... I have questions.)
> 
> Thoughts?


End file.
